House debates

Monday, 24 February 2020

Statements by Members

Aged Care

4:26 pm

Photo of Russell BroadbentRussell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

ACAT teams—they have another name as well—across Australia do the assessment for people who are about to go into aged care. I've been through it myself, with my own father. Members of our audience today will know our responsibility to the older people of Australia. I've read the Legislated review of aged care 2017 report in regard to the ACAT teams. Recommendation 27 is 'That the government integrate the RAS and ACAT assessment workforces'. The report goes on to make other remarks around that. It doesn't say that this area should be contracted out. I've been in situations, in things that I did in my past life, where areas have been contracted out, and there is a great loss of experience that is extended to people. So I'd have to question whether this report, or the royal commission or any other report, actually asks the government to contract out this particular system. We'd be losing an enormous amount of experience if that were the case and might find ourselves down the track with only one provider to provide the service and contract out that service. I'm looking very closely at this. I would expect that there will be further discussions with government and with those around us regarding the expertise that the ACAT teams provide to aged care today.

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